Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Hobo Dinner

A poster over at The Gun Counter was talking about easy campfire meals, and I started thinking about the Hobo Dinner.  This is a great, easy campfire meal with little clean-up.

Hobo Dinner

Ingredients:
half pound of good hamburger
One carrot
One slice of onion
One big potato
One big piece aluminum foil
Salt
Pepper

Assembly:
On the aluminum foil, pat the hamburger into a patty, then wash and slice the potato, the carrot, and put it on top of the hamburger.  Add your slice of onion, then put some salt and pepper on it.  Fold the aluminum foil into a pleasing packet (or roll it all in a ball) and drop it in a convenient campfire.  Did I mention you needed a campfire?  Let it sizzle for 30-45 minutes, depending on how done you want the meat and veggies.  Drag it out of the fire and eat it.  For variety, you can add mushrooms, or asparagus, or anything that tastes good.

This is a great campfire meal and I've eaten hundreds of these things.  The steam and grease from the meat cooks the veggies, and you eat it right from the aluminum foil.  I've eaten them with nothing more than a pocket-knife (you do carry a pocket-knife, don't you?).  You can make them ahead of time when you're liable to be setting up camp late in the evening.  Start your fire, drop your Hobo Dinner, then set up the camp.  When you're done pitching the tent and getting situated, the meal is ready.  It's a great time-saver.

3 comments:

Rivrdog said...

I was taught a version of this cooking style in survival school in the USAF.

BTW, be very careful to not eat little bits of the aluminum foil. Aluminum salts are toxic to the body, and ingested foil is the perfect way to generate them within the body.

El Capitan said...

I've had many a version of that with the Boy Scouts. Best done, IMHO, with heavy-duty aluminum foil and a nice tight butcher's wrap. You'd be amazed how good that tastes with a fistful of sirloin tips, mushrooms, onions and a splash of worcestershire!

Old NFO said...

Ah yes, Boy Scouts, SERE, and some middle of nowhere dets... I STILL do those on occasion (but in the oven now)! :-)